swonderland

boy

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 15:58:00 +0000

When I am having a bad day with Clark I should probably just stop what I am doing and watch this.

(PS. He had a ton of sand in his hair from the sandbox and it was driving me nuts. I do not routinely do that to his hair. HA.)

(oops)

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 13:33:00 +0000

(I am reposting this post from Friday because there was a mishap with the Blogger App and I accidentally deleted it. So I am just putting back.)

I've mentioned before that in the flesh I am pretty bubbly. At least, I can be bubbly. I bubble.

But my brain doesn't always bubble.

There are times when I am mad at pretty much everyone. Not in a realistic way, not like I expect anything from anybody. After all, they are all just people, as messed up and flawed as I am. But I get tired out by all the people in the world and negative feelings swirl around, foggy and cold, and I push them away. I reject them. I try to reject them. Except when I slip, because I am tired, and they start to turn into words and paragraphs and ideas. I snap out of it and notice this is happening, that the dark feeling is now a fleshed-out idea that my mind ran away with while I was sitting at a red light.

It wasn't on purpose, it was just my brain. My brain did it. My brain gave this negative feeling power, by turning it into a thought with words and paragraphs and a thesis statement, assigning blame, sorting out how it all could have been avoided or diagnosing someone else's neurosis. My brain believed the lie that organizing these feelings into a logical pattern would make them fade away or disappear like a line of Tetris blocks. But it doesn't work like that. And I feel even worse. I always feel worse.

...

My computer is dying and I haven't been able to upload/edit photos all month. I want to do Out of the Bin posts again and show off my vintage Christmas pretties and my kids all dolled up and stuff. We'll see. Fingers crossed. I hate only posting the gloom.

Oh look! My computer let me upload a photo. Not edited because that would have set the whole thing on fire. But a photo. From my camera. Hi there Hal. Grouchy little Hal. I want to go wake you up and squeeze your face you are so cute. Except it's midnight and besides, you'll almost certainly wake me before daylight anyway. I'll make a mental note to squeeze your cheeks when you do.

Christmastime again

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 22:24:00 +0000

Seven days until Christmas, people.

I shared my Retro Christmas Pandora Station on here last year, and have had lots of requests for links to it but I swear I cannot figure out where to find one? And anyway this year I also have a Spotify playlist to share, which I named Merry + Bright and affectionately refer to the songs as, well, retro hokey. I want to make another, with traditional Christmas carols at some point but for now we are singing "Christmas Candy" and "Santa Claus' Party" and all is retro hokey happy.

And as long as we are talking Christmas music, here is my entry into Neilochka's 6th Annual Christmahanukwanzaakah Online Holiday Concert. It is me. Singing Jingle Bells. In my car. Last night. Hello! I like a sleigh ride!

I added so many ornaments to our collection this year, finding them and squirreling them away all Summer. We have SO MANY fun vintage ones and flashing oversized bulbs and bubble lights. Bubble lights! Unfortunately I don't have many photos of all of this, because my laptop is dragging along, not uploading things, crashing and crashing. I think this is a direct result of the ten million photos stored on the hard drive. So I kind of brought this on myself.

Not everything is out this year, because Hal is at such a grabby age. But it IS our first year with a real live Christmas tree. We used a 30+ year old artificial tree for years, until it was too shabby to reasonably put back in the attic.

Seven days. Merry and bright.

drops from the day

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:06:00 +0000

I was going to blog Thanksgiving, oh, ten days ago. But I didn't, so I am blogging it now.

I want to tell you about it.

How I cooked all of the food and it actually tasted really... good.

How nice it felt to be in my kitchen, on my feet all day long for two days in a row, actually producing something worthwhile rather than treading water and re-sweeping and spinning and spinning.

It was hard work but the final product was so satisfying. I think that sometimes it may actually feel better to do just slightly more work. Sounds counter-intuitive, I know.

Hey look! I made all of that!

I made seven courses plus two pies, all from scratchy scratch scratch. See those white squares on the top of the stuffing? Those are butter. I used... (hide your eyes) four pounds of butter in this meal.

It's unbelievable how much time and energy we have to put in, just to scrape by. Just doing the bare minimum or even a fair amount. Just living, especially as a parent, requires you to do thousands of things you don't want to do every day. It is easy to get stuck in that hollow place-- just doing all the necessary stuff, silently cursing it in your head, toiling in ways that no one will ever see or recognize. Turning around to a new mess and then turning back again to another one.

I feel like I am squeezing every drop from my day but am I really? I want to look back on every day feeling unblurred. I want to close my eyes and know that something happened. Not just the done-and-then-already-undone stuff of life, but something beyond that. I write here fairly often about my thoughts and ideas and creative drive, how they are all pushed to the side, how I don't have the time or energy to get them out or organize them.

I'm just trying to get by, or so I say. I just want my house to be clean and my family to be fed. And I do want those things, except at the end of the day I don't ever remember what happened. It is a 11pm and then it is 11pm again and again and on and on, and when it isn't 11pm it is time to get Clark from preschool or it's meal time or bath time or whatever and weeks and months go by, spinning and spinning, wondering what happened. It isn't a horrible lot or anything and there are so many things I love about this life, it's just often so static.

I always wonder about those other people, the ones who keep chickens and teach their kids other languages and write books and create and I don't understand them or how they can do all of that AND the daily grind stuff. I always imagine it would involve letting something drop, but it is becoming clearer: it would really only take a tiny bit of extra planning, a tiny bit of extra effort, a tiny bit more of me.

A tiny bit.

The difference between making dinner and making Thanksgiving dinner isn't much, but the difference in satisfaction at the end is great. Maybe the answer to my static is to take on more, raise my expectations for myself rather than lower them? I think that "just getting by" might be 90% of the effort. It's just that little hard bit leftover separating me from the feeling that Something Happened each day.

This is probably all very obvious, except in my day-to-day moments when it doesn't feel obvious at all. So I guess I am writing it here as a way to remind myself, and for you too, if you need reminding.

And anyway, I also learned how to make pie crust. So hey, there's always that.

(Did anyone else make the whole Thanksgiving for the first time this year? High five!)

And now? I can officially start blogging about Christmas.

some things about november

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:06:00 +0000

There is this chalkboard in my kitchen and for the longest time I would use it to hype my family up about the things ahead. I would write the name of the month and then write all of the fun things we were going to do.

I liked it.

But then, exactly a year ago this past weekend, I wrote some things about November. I wrote about Luke turning 30 (which was already over but a major event worth writing on there and crossing off, just because) and Thanksgiving and I remember writing the word "thankful" and cringing inside because I didn't feel it. Our kitchen drain was clogged and our dishwasher was broken and hours of frustration and telephone calls and desperation were going on, all around me, as I found a piece of chalk and threw those words up there. But we were just a few days off of Thanksgiving and I really wanted to be cheerful. So I wrote fakey cheerful stuff. NOVEMBER! THANKSGIVING! THANKFUL! TURKEY TASTES GOOD! I wrote it and looked at it and forced a smile at it. It was my little bit of, okay, this week will be saved. I can make this stuff come true. The plumber will come and my kitchen will not smell like this anymore and this fiasco will be a funny memory and nice-feeling things will happen.

But I didn't make it come true.
The drain was fixed and the dishwasher replaced and then -- my grandma died.
Unexpectedly. Out of nowhere.
A year ago tomorrow, but it really feels like today because it was Monday.

So the turkey went into the deep freezer and all the other Thanksgiving stuff was pushed aside and away as we frantically packed suitcases with black clothes and sippy cups. The framed photos of her as a little girl were grabbed off of the walls to display at the visitation. It felt insane and hazy.

My grandma wasn't just a lady. She was MY GRANDMA. A beautiful wonderful lady who rocked me to sleep and sang to me and taught me things and made me breakfast (peanut butter toast cut into four pieces and a bowl of cereal and chocolate milk) and took me to school every single day of elementary school. My mom and I lived with her until I was eight and after we moved out she would answer the phone in this particular cheerful voice asking, "How's our sweet girl?" every time I called. She was the best. She still is. We just don't get to look at her and tell her so now.

Erasing that fakey cheerful stuff from the chalkboard last November was hard. It's funny how your brain latches on to things and puts your sadness there. With each new month I would intend to write fun things but instead stand with the chalk in hesitation, mostly choosing generic words or drawings instead. A cat drawing stayed for many months, until yesterday when Alice brought it up. "Why is that cat on there all the time? It should be a turkey. My school turkey needs a mommy and daddy."

Her school turkey was made out of her hand print, so at her insistence, we made a family out of handprints.

And then I went out to the garage and got last year's uneaten turkey out of the deep freeze and threw it in the garbage.

I am going to use my grandma's potato masher that now belongs to me and we are going to do this. We will eat turkey and potatoes and dressing and I will hug my mom and kids and brothers and husband and be thankful, for real.

11/22/2007

space

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 19:34:00 +0000

Our house is shrinking. Our kids eat and eat and eat and then wake up bigger, in a slightly smaller house. With five people in a 1,300 square foot ranch, there isn't much left over anymore.

We just bought bunk beds for the boys and replaced Alice's full bed with a (smaller, space saving) twin. A girly iron flowery twin.

On more than one occasion I have considered dismantling this room, putting Clark and Alice together and making this the baby room. It probably would have saved a lot of trouble over the last year. But I just can't take this space apart.

We met a tiny newborn baby girl named Alice today at Target. She was all snuggled up in her car seat while her mom paid in front of us. She even looked like my Alice did at that age, with black hair and a little pixie face. I picked my Alice up so she could see the baby better and though she didn't say anything, I can read her shy faces and could tell she felt special and connected, having the same name as the fresh pink bundle everyone was cooing over. I felt a few stabbing pangs of dissonance, of wanting my baby Alice back while also not wanting to give up my three year old Alice to the past or the future.

After we paid, my Alice cried because she didn't get to tell baby Alice goodbye, so I carried her all the way to the car and she hugged me so cuddly tight while I pushed the cart and she told me that my hugs are, "SO GOOD at helping to feel her better."

I made this room for her before I even saw her pixie face.

And yes, I keep adding to it and changing it. But the basic feeling is the same for me. And I just can't take it apart.

I know someday she'll have the walls covered in posters of Justin Timberlake, Jr or whatever.
But it's okay. Because the older she gets the better I get to know her.

I am so glad I get to know her.

Laundry 2

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 04:41:00 +0000

I can't get everything just right and it freezes me.

I can't write here until my house is clean and I can't clean my house until I am wearing makeup and clean clothes but none of the clothes are clean so where does that leave me?

I don't know where this came from, the having to do everything in this order, but it's the only way I can build momentum and win the day rather than dragging through and collapsing and wanting to punch things.

There is dead laundry in a heap on the floor. You know, dead laundry? It's at least as bad as debris. Dead laundry is laundry that gets left in the dryer for a few days and is wrinkled beyond help but you have to take it out and go through it anyway for one reason or another. You put it on the floor and it collapses there and doesn't breathe.

Dead laundry looks like a pile of wadded up paper. Like someone wrote a lot of drafts or drew a lot of bad pictures and then killed them all and made a pile. There is no energy in dead laundry. There is nothing promising or engaging.

I think I have to move it back to the laundry room like it's dirty, mixing it in with the actually dirty laundry so I can pretend none of this happened, and start over. Otherwise I'll flee with the kids to the thrift store or the Target and I'll spend a few dollars I don't have in exchange for escaping the chore creature on the floor.

I wrote this a few days ago in a flurry and without reading it twice but I didn't hit publish because I have commitment issues. Laundry drama. I have created a genre.

Laundry Debris

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 01:41:00 +0000

So it turns out that I only know how to do things that are very very simple. Okay, no, that isn't true at all. It just feels true. I can do anything if I am motivated. I just can't get boring detail tasks done unless all the obstacles to getting them done have been cleared away. Do not leave it up to me to make a lot of phone calls or send things in the mail or match socks. Socks kill me. Remember when I threw all of Luke's socks away and started over? That's kind of where I am at with kid socks right now. I just want them out of my life.

Actually anything that has two matching pieces-- two-piece pajamas sets for kids? No thank you. My kids will never ever wear those two pieces together unless it is an utter coincidence because I will never keep track of them from the dirty laundry to washing to drying to folding to putting away. One will make it through and the other one will end up under a tablecloth that doesn't get washed for three weeks or under the hamper and by the time it goes through the whole process, the other piece will be dirty again.

I actually have a word for these items: laundry debris. It isn't just the mismatched stuff, it's also the stuff people think they like but don't. The last resort t-shirts and the too-stretched-out and the stuff you think you want to wear and try on but you don't really ever want to wear and take off in desperation before you leave the house, throwing it into the dirty pile when it is actually just unloved. All of that? Laundry debris.

So I've started doing laundry with baskets, a storage tub, and two garbage bags. I put all of the top-tier stuff in baskets. This stuff is easy to identify because you wear it all the time. Then I put the underwear with the too-stretched elastic and the shirt Alice drew all over with permanent markers and the junked washed-too-many-times shrunken tops in one of the garbage bags to throw away. I use the other garbage bag for things (even nice things!) that we can no longer use and need to be donated and I put the things that have been outgrown and need to be taken out of rotation into the storage bin. Phew.

Basically, the only way I can solve the laundry problem is to actually solve the problem. I only want to be washing, drying, folding, and putting away the top tier items, the stuff we really wear all the time. Otherwise I just won't ever do it and I will have to buy my kids more new clothes just so they can go to school.

Part of my willingness to donate nice stuff comes from my luck at the Goodwill Outlet. They sell clothes for 69 cents a pound and I have purchased Matilda Jane, Tea Collection, Mini Boden, Crewcuts, Stella McCartney for babyGap, etc., stuff there in the last few months. So it doesn't phase me to put some nice stuff back into that rotation. I like to imagine somebody finding it and being very happy.

Does anyone else have this very low threshold for laundry BS? Do you have a system? I am always up for improving mine. Even doing it this way... I hate it.

placeholder

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:36:00 +0000

So I made a new blog header. I don't know if I'll leave it up. It feels a little too cheerful or something. And I miss the chalkboard. I'll try to do a new chalkboard soon but who am I kidding? Nothing I think I am going to do ever gets done until eight months later when everything perfectly plays out and the light is right and somehow someway the right photo gets taken or whatever. Anyway, I just had to change the header away from what was there or I was never going to post anything again. I am ruled by how things FEEL and the old one just felt... done. And it made me feel done. Maybe I do just feel done? I don't know. I think I blog less because I post so much on Instagram. It isn't the same as blogging at all, but it does satisfy my desire to put things out there.

These are all from today. Today! I wonder what I'll post tomorrow.

Are you on Instagram? Do I follow you? I should. Say something to me there and I will.

Tea for Alice

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 03:06:00 +0000

You all know I don't do PR stuff, like, ever. But when Tea Collection contacted me and asked if I'd do a little review, I couldn't resist. I love their stuff, I do I do.

I picked out the 5-piece Ancho Androna set for Alice, mostly because I wanted the dresses and it seemed like a good deal. The fact that it came with leggings didn't even make an impression on me. But you know what? The leggings are totally Alice's favorite now. I never would think to buy nicer leggings like these because they sell them at the big red chain store and we have a whole drawer full. But now that I have tried them I will definitely consider them for future seasons. They are softer and the waist is more comfortable. They are first pick from the drawer, now, every time.

My favorite piece is the Ancho Chile Stripe dress. It's hard to get Alice to wear things that aren't pink but she likes the way the skirt looks on this and I have convinced her that it is a twirly party dress. Love love love. She wore it for her first day of preschool AND for her first ever school picture.

They have girl's clothing, boy's clothing and even grown-up stuff. And it's all so preeeetty. And soft. And Alice can dress herself in the mix and match pieces! (This is huge. You guys, when I try to dress her now she TAKES OFF the clothes I put on her so she can put them back on herself. She is so three.)

I love their globally inspired collections. They actually remind me of the new bedding I just ordered Alice from the Kukunest sample sale store. (It really belongs on her new twin bed, coming soon!)

And lately I've been going crazy for Mary Blair and It's A Small World-- the design and style and colors and whole vibe. And anyway, these things all kinda remind me of each other and I love that.

**Tea Collection provided us with the clothing. I really truly like them.

looking on

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 03:42:00 +0000

I've written fifteen posts in my head since last week. They evaporated because I didn't put them anywhere. Now they are all in clouds around me. I'll get them back eventually so I can type them out or realize how dumb they are or both.

Thank you for your many thoughtful comments and emails last week. Thank you for sharing and encouraging and hanging around. You are nice people. I am glad you are here.

Clark was sneaky with my camera today. He filled the whole memory card.

Yes, he took all of these. And also at least 40 shots of his blurry feet.

There is a chance that at some point I will remove my last post.
I wanted to get it all out but I don't know if Clark would want it out there like that.
I am trying to see from his perspective.
You know?

I am also considering a big change to the way my blog is laid out and designed and stuff. I don't even know how to do it, but I want to try.

I thought it might be like getting a new notebook and I really need a new notebook.

A new notebook might keep me from throwing this one away.

I am that mom.

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:34:00 +0000

I spent some time with my face smooshed against the hardwood floor tonight. Just staring. I moved a little, then to bed, where I stayed in total silence. Staring into space again. Trying to hear the quiet. I listened past the news on the television and the kids who should be sleeping but are instead telling each other jokes in bed. Past the dishwasher and the husband on the treadmill. I finally found the quiet and I caught it like a fly and I stared it in the face until it dissolved. Then I grabbed my laptop and opened it and started typing this post.

I know my blog has not been very much fun for the last six to twelve months. There have been so many things going on. Things I have talked about here and things I have not. I used to feel like not-complaining or bitching or venting or publicly giving up was a virtuous thing. But guess what? NO ONE NOTICES. You can martyr away nine lives and no one will give you a funeral for even one of them.

I will be the first to admit that having one baby was very easy for me. It was. I know I know. But it was. It just came naturally. I never had that "OH MY GOD WHAT DO I DO WITH IT?" freak out when we came home from the hospital. I fought through breastfeeding for 14 months with a smile. I 100% cloth diapered. I doted and played and danced. I was silly. It was not hard for me.

Then, when that baby was only 19 months old, I had another baby. Another baby! I did. And she was the easiest baby ever. She slept through the night the day we brought her home from the hospital. She was a natural with the nursing and easygoing and sweet as can be. I actually potty trained 21 month old Clark while all-day nursing 6 week old Alice. I did it and it was not that hard. I mean, it actually was hard but I did it anyway and pushed on through and felt very good about myself. I did that. That was me.

Then. Hal. During my pregnancy with him things with Clark got... weird. He started doing things and acting ways I had never had to deal with before. (I could elaborate here but trust me, it's too much for one blog post.) A baby is one thing; a defiant crazed three year old is an entirely different creature. Why hadn't anyone told me that babies are (sometimes) the easy part? How had I become so self confident as a mother that I was now facing life with three children while simultaneously doubting my ability, for the very first time, to care for even one?

Clark remains, to this day, difficult. In every sense of the word. Everything that goes on in this house is filtered through, "How will Clark react?" first. Last year I sent him to preschool and it didn't take long for the "ADHD" and "assessment" words to get thrown around. And I know. I mean, I know. Trying to get him washed and fed and dressed for preschool in the morning often leaves me in tears. Moving from one task to another, transitioning, it's just flat out horrible. He is brilliant (he is reading small words! and writing words on his own! and memorizes everything! and jokes like an adult! And sings every note to every theme song from Star Wars while playing out the corresponding scene with his action figures!) and sweet as can be and totally wonderful and I am so happy to be his mom. But he is also draining me. It is just hard. And no one is here to go through it with me and see how agonizing each step of our day can be. Whenever I try to explain him and his quirks to someone else I stop after a few sentences, silenced by the realization that there is no way to make my listener understand.

Hal's entire first year of life was spent not sleeping, dealing with constant ear infections and doctors visits and his own issues. Even now, he screams for many hours of the day. Screams at the top of his lungs. Just because. He has amazingly high muscle tone and an opinion about everything, expressed with a scream. He can climb the slide and the couch and the beds and the dining room table. He is smart and wonderful and still tiny, but also the loudest human being I have ever met. He expresses his discomfort with such bravado that it takes me by surprise every time he does it. Which is every other minute of every single day. I can't even take him grocery shopping anymore. He lets out blood curdling screams one after another when I won't let him down to run away from me or climb the watermelon display.

Alice is three. She is easy going. She loves posing for photographs and the color pink and she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. She wants to play soccer and football and be a princess. She sings stream of consciousness songs about everything she does. Alice is so night-and-day different from my boys that it almost stings.

If I had three kids like Alice? I would still think very highly of myself. I would subconsciously pat myself on the back for the excellent job I do. I would wonder what was wrong with other parents and kids. I would never have been humbled. I know there are moms with compliant children. I know it, because I have one. And I don't mean that she is 100% complaint 100% of the time. She still can be bossy and disobedient. But unlike Clark, she doesn't constantly demand more and more and never stop. She doesn't shout at me. She doesn't fight me on every single action we have to get through together, turning things that should be routine into a battle. My gosh the difference it makes. And I want to publicly state that despite her easier personality, I absolutely do not favor her, which is a funny thing about parenthood. (And I know you know exactly what I mean because if you have read this far, chances are good that you are a parent too. And you know.)

I see and hear remarks about tantrums and screamers and bratty children. About parenting and "I don't LET my child behave like that!" HA! Every time I take my kids out in public I know there is a chance it will end horribly. I am the mom with the kid that for no reason at all loses his shit in the middle of the produce section. It doesn't have anything to do with love or patience or discipline or any of the things I used to think. It is absolutely the way Clark was born. It is the personality he was given. I can do everything "right" and not let him get his way over and over and over and... guess what? He will try again. I honestly believe he will grow into a wonderful boy and man. I am not doing everything right or well, but I keep trying to do better. Every single day I get pulled away in the tide and every single night I swim back to shore. I am not desperate or depressed, I am just fighting my way. And I felt like telling you about it.

(Reading Megan's lovely post got me in the mood to write this.)

something

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:57:00 +0000

My hierarchy of needs is all messed up. There are too many levels to get to the top. Layers and layers and many staircases. No elevators.

This morning I was thinking that it would be kind of nice if I could share my brain with someone else so they could do all of the work of turning my productive thoughts and ideas into... something. Plus then I'd have someone to talk to while I sweep the floor. Any volunteers? You'd have to be pretty Type A to get it all organized and probably also a scientist, to figure out how to get in.

This blog is kind of like a way in. Not like a door, but a window. A window that is way way way up high, so you can see in a little bit if you are standing back far enough.

Can you see me in here? I am waving.

And this jumbed nonsense is what comes out when I Just Write.

Edited to add: I meant literally share my brain. Like a second personality or friend actually climbing in my head. Not just talktalktalk, like, thinkthinkthink and they just KNOW. It wasn't realistic. Just a thought I had that bounced around on the walls of my mind with no one to know it existed until I wrote it down.

cheers

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 16:00:00 +0000

My last posts lost me two followers. I don't know why I noticed. I wish I didn't notice the number, but it's right there when I log in. Maybe I should disable that. I have also gotten quite a few worried comments and emails. You all know I am just fine, right? Just fine. Happy. Reflective and tired and happy. It's the tone around this dusty place. In person I am peppy. Chipper. Bubbly, even.

The other day I drove past what appeared, from my peripheral vision, to be a makeshift shrine for a car accident victim. Teddy bears and flowers. But when I looked straight at it, it was a very overly-decorated sign for an estate sale. I love estate sales, but they had already unintentionally depressed me. Tone is everything. I hope I am not unintentionally depressing you. Am I unintentionally depressing you?

I now present with you with peppy, chipper, and bubbly.

Hearts and stars and sandwiches and strawberries! Gingham and ginger ale! Bunnies and babies! Pink and gold! Sunshine and radio!

I'mma pep things up.

in circles

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:40:00 +0000

It is normal to be fickle right? As fickle as I am? Geeze Louise. I started listing some of my vintage kids items (just a FEW items, like, what was on the very top of the pile) on etsy last week and immediately became too overwhelmed with the process and now I feel like pulling them down and not dealing with it at all. Why is that? WHY? There were, like, strings inside of me pulling me back, fighting forward motion, every step of the way. And, so, something that should be kind of fun (in theory it would be SO FUN) felt arduous.

I just don't know.

I always see people talking about their projects. I need a project. And it needs to come out of my own brain. I am circling and circling with creative ideas and energy but don't know how to make them add up to anything. I don't know where to rest. I am praying for a landing field.

So I fuss around the house, moving furniture and switching where pictures hang and making things a little bit new and different. It gets me by and makes me feel better, but it isn't IT. It's just the overflow.

Do you have one? A project? A landing field? Something to work on that makes you feel like the youiest you? Where did it come from? And how did you know?

in a straight line

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 03:25:00 +0000

I know I should have updated on school but I didn't want to because it wasn't that great of an update. Clark was crying a lot when I dropped him off. Banging on the window, screaming his head off, the whole bit. That never ever happened last year. It caught me off guard. I think it is getting better though. I hope it is getting better.

I know I don't write as much as I used to. Or as much as I could. I appreciate that a lot of you stick around anyway. It's dumb. I'm happier when I'm writing here.

You know that feeling when you are driving over a bridge and you take ahold of your entire self and freeze it into place with the one goal of not driving off the side? Don't you always get to the top and start thinking, damn, I should really google the statistics on how many people accidentally drive off the side. It is probably a lot. This has to be a thing that happens. I mean, how do all of these people exercise self control appropriately and continue driving in a straight line?

I feel like that about being a mom too. Like, being a mom is like driving. Stick with me. I feel like I am driving, all the time. At night when the kids are in bed I am still aware, always on edge. I don't want to drive off the side. Always double checking and double checking. I sleep, but only kinda. I wake up if someone cries seemingly BEFORE THEY EVEN CRY, that is how fast I respond. When they are awake it never stops. It is "do not drive off the edge, do not drive off the edge, do not drive off the edge, just keep going in a straight line" all day and every day. I don't take a break or a nap or a shower or lunch. I don't because I can't.

And then I think, wait, HOW are other people doing this? How? How do they take care of their kids and make three meals and snacks and get the food and keep the bathroom from reeking of poorly aimed urine and change all those diapers and do laundry and keep it from being wrinkled and put it away and vacuum and hands-and-knees clean the ten feet surrounding the high chair that are covered in food bits? How do they all just keep going, straight ahead, and then... write? They write too? They write on their blog, like, a lot? And tweet? And chit-chat blah blah networknetwork here are my photos and googles and tumbles! How on Earth. I just don't even. I don't know.

Maybe it is that my kids are so close in age. Three kids in 3.5 years is, uh, challenging. Maybe I have too high of standards. Maybe my house is too small and our budget is kinda tight. Or maybe it is just like this for everyone, no matter. Is it? Is it like this for you?

practice

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 03:28:00 +0000

Do you remember when you were about 17 and you were in lots of ways kind of a grown up but in lots of ways not one at all? How you would go out to eat with your friends and have to ask for a table and the hostess would say, "How many?" and instead of just answering her like a normal human you would look at each other and giggle and then stutter out a number followed by and preceded by the non-word "um"?

I asked for a table a couple of weeks ago and when I sat down I wondered what happened and how many hostesses I had to stutter at before getting a table just wasn't a big deal. It's just getting a table. It's just saying a number at a person and whatever, no big deal or anything and also could we please sit outside? That's the thing I like about being a grown-up, even more than the freedom. I like all the practice I have had at doing people-things. I like the lack of anxiety in those situations.

I still need practice in some areas.
I still need practice with sending my kids to school.

Alice really really really really wanted to go to preschool this year. So I am sending her. She is three, and old enough to be in the class Clark was in last year. The idea of being away from her for eight hours a week makes me want to sit on the concrete of the parking lot and cry. Clark is going to be in the fours class -- the last class before the big K. A year from now he'll be in Kindergarten and just the thought of that makes me want to do that parking lot sob thing for three days straight.

Last year Clark had an iffy year. He struggles with things. He hates to be told that he has to stop doing something. He is not good with transitions. He struggles with following directions. He locks in on the stuff he likes and tunes the rest of the world out. He is going to school tomorrow. I am so nervous and I know I am supposed to relax but I don't have practice with this. I go to his school and I feel like a little girl with big emotions that don't make sense and not like a mom who knows how to get a table at a restaurant without saying "um".

I haven't blogged in almost two weeks because I have spent all of that time with my laptop folded up and stuck under my bed. I could feel school looming and squeezing and growing larger, out of focus for awhile but directly in front of me now. I miss my kids and they haven't left me yet. I am grateful for this chance to spend time alone with the baby. He needs me to look him in the face at eye level for more minutes of the day. I am happy I get to talk to him in mama-language and spend 20 minutes (in a row!) trying to get him to say one word. I am glad for that. I also need this break. Having three kids in under four years makes your brain feel like it's about to fall out. I actually need this break for my mental health. I think the entire house -- the floors and surfaces and walls and everything-- will sigh in relief because there will finally be a stretch of time where someone isn't spilling something on it.

But how am I going to sleep tonight?

out of the bin: volume five

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 04:13:00 +0000

Sometimes things are just staring at me.

Oh, hello there little darling butterfly tray. I think I will put you in Alice's room on the painted table that belonged to my grandma, next to the ikea spice-rack bookshelf and the '70s phone on which we pretend to order sandwiches.

Other times? Things are hidden. Or, more accurately, buried.

And even though it is the easy-to-spot stuff that gives me adrenaline to press on, the little sparkling bits of treasure in the heap of junk keep me coming back.

This chair. This chair made my jaw drop. Still does. Seeing it for the first time felt like opening a birthday present. But someone else grabbed it first. We made eye contact, my heart sank, and I walked around the store trying to put it out of my mind. I was stomach-sick-disappointed and thinking in four letter words. "WHY didn't I just grab the chair? WHY? WHY AM I SO SLOW? DON'T THINK SO MUCH NEXT TIME, ERIN, JUST GRAB!" And on and on.

About an hour later I was going through the books and the man who got the chair? He gave it to me. He GAVE it to me! "I was just going to sell it anyway," he said, and handed it over. I know.

So now this chair reminds me of that one time that guy at the Goodwill Outlet was nice to me and gave me something he got first, fair and square, like a little gift. I hope it always does.

(Okay fine, it also reminds me to not think-- just grab. Ha.)

PS. That photo of Alice in the chair was taken on Hal's birthday -- her last day as a two year old. And she chose that book and sat down like that all on her own. No posing or anything. This is just what she was doing, being two years and 364 days old and cute as a button. I think I need to make a print.

a-ha

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 01:10:00 +0000

I figured out my baby.

After all of his screams and finger-points and moods changing on a dime. After coming to terms with his refusing to sleep and his baby-language tantrums and his koala-ing my leg and early walking and wanting to eat hamburgers instead of purees and his obsession with Legos and lightsabers, it hit me.

Uh. HE DOESN'T KNOW HE'S A BABY.

He looks at Clark and Alice and projects their image onto himself. He thinks he is four years old. He is one year old.

Now, who is going to tell him?

the toy shelf

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 04:04:00 +0000

I declutter A LOT. The five of us live in a 1,300 square foot home with three bedrooms and one and a half baths. We love our home, it is cozy and ours and nothing about it bothers me much at all. There just isn't room for tons of stuff. With Alice's birthday coming up on Satuday, I've been sneaking little (and big) things out of her room for the past few weeks. Bags and bags of donations. But these things? These things stay.

After posting my quick foggy-brained messed-up-white-balance photos of the toy shelf the other day, I just had to post a redo. Just for myself. Just because my camera and I haven't had enough time together this year and throwing up images (or words or whatever) that aren't quite right has never been my style and makes me feel all cringey inside.

I'm more emotional watching Hal turn one than I was with Clark or Alice. He is likely the last baby. This is likely the end of babyland in this house. Even as I have to fight to loosen my grip on it, part of me is ready to use both hands again. It's been a long hard year and I was exhausted but awake for almost all of it. What on Earth will I do with a full night of sleep and two hands? Lots, I guess. For one, I will take more pictures.

hypothesis

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:53:00 +0000

So I guess this weekend is birthday weekend. My girl is turning three and my baby is turning one. This is what they tell me. This is what the calendar tells me and we all know the calendar is in charge. The calendar also says that my drivers license, the one I just renewed, like, last month? The calendar says it expires in less than a year. The calendar always wins. And it doesn't just win, it cheats. If I were a scientist I would prove it to you. You are a little kid with your whole life in front of you for what feels like an entire lifetime and then for one glimmering moment you are doing things and making choices and then you pause and look up and you are half-way to one hundred. But you remember what you wore on your first day of kindergarten like it's no big thing. You are that same little girl in the Minnie Mouse raincoat, just wearier, and you got from there to here in the same time it took to go through grade school. Of course I am speculating. I am not fifty, I am twenty eight. But I'll be fifty in a few years. I don't know the exact mathematical equation, but I think it's just ten years or maybe two and a half years away. Maybe I'll be fifty this Winter. I don't know. But I know that come this weekend, Alice will be three and the little baby who was born in my bedroom, a few feet away from where I sit typing this, will be a whole year old.

I know it and I even believe it.

out of the bin: volume four

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 02:15:00 +0000

this is both late (i said i'd post tuesday or wednesday - HA!) and short. i spent the week taking care of a million little things and a super sick (high fever and flu) husband and woke up this morning with my legs moving through honey and my body aching like i'd done some super exercising when i had not, in fact, done even un-super exercising and around noon i gave up today for lost. by six i realized my throat was hurting and that, oh yeah, i spent my week around a sick person! so i fear i have the flu thing he had. typing hurts. it hurts my arms and my fingers and my head. but i will show you a teeny tiny little thing i pulled out of the bin this week anyway. well, four teeny tiny little things, technically.

three little kittens who lost their mittens.

and their mama. and a bonus kitten who doesn't go with the story so i am not counting her.

my photos aren't the best this week-- i took them today and it was too hard for me to remember how to adjust the camera while simultaneously thinking about how much more comfortable it would be to get in bed and not move a muscle. but you get the idea. i am a sucker for the knick-knacks.

a HUGE sucker.

ahem.

next week i'll try to post earlier in the week. or earlier on friday. or whatever. ha! you never know with me! i'm a wild card! and totally unreliable! it says so right in my bio! good thing this is my blog and you all know me by now, right?

xs and os and a happy weekend.

like dickens

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:10:00 +0000

Today we were driving on the interstate and we passed some old apartment building called Pickwick something or other. I remembered being 12 years old, moving from my little town to Indianapolis, driving on the interstate and seeing this place. Pickwick. I thought it sounded romantic. Like Dickens.

There is a building along the side of the main apartment complex, a big talll building with aluminum siding all over. I don't know what goes on there, something sportyish, but to me it was ajsdjkal-- excuse me I just killed a fly on my keyboard, for real-- but to me it was a landmark and it was given value, this aluminum building, because I knew it was a place I would never go and that people there play a sport I'll never know how to play and live in apartment rooms I'll never enter. It was like a place I didn't belong. And I could feel that when our car would pass. I don't know why.

I was an only child until I was 15 so there are a lot of things I don't know about. Dumb things. Board games. Bowling. Dumb things. But things. I have never ever played checkers. When people try to tell me how to bowl better, I have a panic attack and a meltdown. I remove my bowling shoes. I threaten to walk home.

I think I used to feel like that about BlogHer and Blissdom and Conference Time Season on Twitter and all that. Even though I went to Blogher in Chicago a couple of years ago. I still felt like I didn't belong. Like it was this place I didn't quite get. But I just heard that the 2012 Blogher Conference is in New York City, and I swear to you, I will find a way to go. I think I might even belong.

just remembering.

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 03:29:00 +0000

Mama I wanna be a calico critter for Halloween.
I wanna be a craft for Halloween.
I wanna be duck duck goose for Halloween.
I wanna be a paperdoll for Halloween.
I wanna be a surprise for Halloween.

-Alice, on November 19, 2010, thinking way way ahead

out of the bin: volume three

noreply@blogger.com (swonderful) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:41:00 +0000

i think next week i am going to do this earlier in the week, like tuesday or wednesday. i can't really control myself and always hit the outlet on monday or tuesday and it would be a lot easier to get it all uploaded right away. i rescued so many pretty things this week. so many! i only took one awful blurry in-the-bin photo, though.

do you see it?

a fellow outlet addict who i see ALL THE TIME had an identical one in her cart a few weeks ago and my heart sunk because i wanted it so much. i even went up to her and was kind of passive aggressive, like, "hey, i really really like that. that is so crazy cute." and i capped it off with serious stare.

but there, now! it is! for me!

i also picked up this book that day. caroline in europe, why you gotta be so cute? i really wish i had taken these photos with my big camera and not my iphone so you could really see the colors, but you get the idea. CUTE.

oh yes, and the three little kittens puppet storybook. because you really can't ever have too many puppet storybooks.

i also bought the cutest kitchen curtains i've ever seen that day. then had a tragedy with them in the washing machine. only one of the six panels survived. i'll post a photo after i make the surviving piece into cafe curtains and hang (it) them.

so, that was monday.

but, of course, i went back today and bought more.

(PS. do you guys want the linky, or no? i will put one up next week when i put up my post if you want. i will aim for tuesday. remember, IN THE BIN then OUT OF THE BIN. or shelf. or basement. or garage sale table. or whatever. see ya next week!)